As society continues to become more and more mobile, the importance of wireless services becomes increasingly apparent. A particular concern relates to the ease of using mobile communication devices. For example, the need to simplify user manipulation of certain mobile communication devices while the user is driving has been well documented. One approach to addressing this concern has been to use speech recognition technology to process voice commands from the user. While the use of speech recognition technology has alleviated concerns in some regards, a number of difficulties remain.
One particular difficulty results from the inherent ergonomic limitations of conventional mobile communication device keypads. For example, a typical mobile communication device such as a wireless phone or personal digital assistant (PDA) configured for wireless communication, has a keypad with many small buttons representing the letters of the alphabet, digits from zero to nine, etc. The size and sheer number of buttons on the keypad can require a relatively high amount of attention and effort on behalf of the user to enter the voice command mode. Thus, although the subsequent entry of voice commands to the speech recognition system of the communication device can reduce the effort required to dial numbers, there is still room for improvement. There is therefore a need for an approach to operating a wireless communication device that does not require the user to manipulate a complicated keypad.
While developments have been made in providing a simplified remote device to be used in conjunction with a wireless communication device, certain difficulties remain. In particular, the typical approach has been to permit the user to store voice tags in the memory of the communication device and access the communication device via a simplified remote device, where the voice tags are associated with telephone numbers stored in the memory of communication device. Such an approach is device-based in that the voice dialing functionality is restricted to the mobile communication device. As a result, the conventional remote device does not facilitate the use of more robust services available on the network. There is therefore a need for a wireless communication technique that provides for access to network-based communication services.
While certain dedicated services like the commercially available OnStar® system provide one-button access to concierge and emergency services, the systems use a transceiver that is fixed to the vehicle and lack flexibility. There is therefore a need for a wireless communication approach that does not require the use of a fixed communication device and/or transceiver.